This invention relates to improvements in vehicle sun roofs.
Some motor vehicles on the market today employ a hard head liner for the vehicle roof which is often contoured. When fitting a sun roof to such a vehicle it is necessary to cut an aperture not only in the roof of the vehicle but also in the head liner in order to accommodate the frame of the sun roof. The sun roof frame normally consists of an outer upper section and an inner lower section and the sections are so arranged as to grip between them the vehicle roof around the edge of the aperture cut therein. It may be possible to clamp the head liner material between the two frame sections but this leaves the frame exposed and is unsightly. When the head liner does not closely follow the contour of the vehicle roof, or is deeply profiled, this method is unsatisfactory. Therefore a somewhat larger aperture must be cut in the head liner material to allow the lower frame section to pass through the aperture in the head liner and to engage with the edge of the aperture in the vehicle roof itself. A gap is therefore left between the edge of the aperture in the head liner and the outer edge of the lower frame section of the sun roof which gap is rather unsightly. Further, the edges of the head liner around the aperture are unsupported.
This gap presents a difficult finishing problem to which frequently the only solution is to make up and fit a new fabric head liner. Such a method is time-consuming and expensive. Even where the original hard head liner is fabric faced, so that the fabric may be carefully peeled away from an aperture cut inside the line of the frame, the excess backing material removed and the fabric then tucked around the lower section of the frame, considerable extra time, skill and expense are involved.